Are wealth transfers biased against girls?: Gender differences in land inheritance and schooling investment in Ghana's western region
2004
A. Quisumbing | E. Payongayong | K. Otsuka
This study attempts to analyse changing patterns of land transfers and schooling investments by gender over three generations in customary land areas of Ghana's Western Region.The authors find: that although traditional matrilineal inheritance rules deny landownership rights to women, women have increasingly acquired land through gifts and other means, thereby reducing the gender gap in landownershipthe gender gap in schooling has also declined significantly, with the construction of schools in rural areas and increasing non-farm employment opportunities for womena gender gap in education does still persist though.The authors attribute such changes to the increase in women's bargaining power due to an agricultural technology that increased the demand for women's labor in cocoa farming. This has contributed to the reduction of social discrimination as well as weak parental discrimination.The authors suggest that a major policy effort should be made to remove or reduce social discrimination by providing fair access to schooling or promulgating egalitarian succession.
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